1. Segment Only: In this option, the program will add spaces between the words in the text. No other information is added.
2. Add Dictionary Entries at status line: After segmenting the text, the program adds two kinds of ways of looking up the word. First, when the user puts the mouse over an underlined word, its pronounciation and definition will appear at the bottom of the browser, at the status line. If the user actually clicks on the underlined word, it will take them to the pronounciation and English definition as a footnote later on in the page.
3. Add Dictionary Entries as footnotes: This option is for users with older browsers that do not understand JavaScript. Holding the mouse over a word will do nothing, but clicking it on will still take the user to the definition in the footnotes. The file size is also smaller than option 2.
4. Convert to Pinyin: The program segments the text and uses that information to convert the Chinese characters to pinyin. Only the pinyin is shown in the results.
5. Add pinyin next to characters: The pronounciation of each character is indicated by adding pinyin by its side. No other information is added.
6. Add Pinyin above Characters: Add the pinyin above the character, in an annotation style called the ruby. Currently only works on Internet Explorer 5 (for other browsers the pinyin is placed next to the character).
7. Add Pinyin/Defs in Margins: Type a list of words into "Words to Annotate" box, one word per line with no spaces. Annotator will add definitions of these words to the right of the paragraph the words occur in. If the words are not in the dictionary, you can also include the definition besides the word, using the format described below.

The user can add their own definition in this format:

Chinese [pinyin] /English definition/

That is, the Chinese (no internal spaces), followed by one space (not a wide Chinese space), followed by the pinyin surrounded by square brackets (with a space between each pinyin syllable), followed by another space, followed the English definition/explanation surrounded by slashes (this is the CEDICT format). One word or definition per line.

Users can use this to override the CEDICT definitions in the other modes if the definitions or romanizations have mistakes.

When using "Add to Margins" the first time the word occurs it will be in bold. Its definition will appear more or less to its right. Right now it is set up to try match words to paragraphs, so be sure to have at least one blank line between paragraphs.

Users can add words or definitions to the "Words to Annotate" section to supplement or override the existing dictionary. Use the CEDICT format for entering entries.

The tool currently only handles GB-encoded text. Dictionary definitions are drawn from Paul Denisowski's CEDICT Chinese-English dictionary. If you find a word that does not have a definition, consider contributing it to the CEDICT project. The segmentation algorithm is still under development. Just what constitutes a "proper" Chinese word is also a good research topic. You can download the segmenter code (in perl) and run it yourself.

This page is a mirror of the annotator formerly available at Erik Peterson's On-line Chinese Tools site.